PSA: Chromebook £120

So it looks like this is the favoured device of the young sturdyladdette

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-cb5-571-15-6-chromebook-white-10119797-pdt.html

Anyone more in tune with tech than me got an opinion on it?
I’m very much thinking a Chromebook is the way to go, does everything she NEEDS it to do, using either office 365 or Google docs, and most of the things she WANTS it to do.

Thoughts please from the ever knowledgeble hive

There’s really not much to choose – they are all good. See if you can compare screens in real life. Also – a bigger screen isn’t necessarily better because it makes it more awkward to carry about. The 11.6 one my wife has is like carrying a magazine.

However if your kid wants it there’s no issue with it.

Thanks Mol, hopefully I’ll get chance to go hands on with one in PCW tomorrow.

On a side note, I went into John Lewis last week hoping to get someone who knew about Chromebooks and any drawbacks… 1st thing the guys says… No you can’t use any office type applications on a CBook, no way no how and you can’t open a word doc in Google Docs etc
****’ muppet.
I bet it’s “help” like this that stops Chromebooks taking off

I bet it’s “help” like this that stops Chromebooks taking off

I suspect its more to do with PCs doing everything a chromebook can do plus a load more. The advantages chromebooks had (quick boot, long battery and cheap) have been matched by budget PC laptops

A CB is still quicker than a quick W10 laptop, I would wager. Plus more secure, and cannot be screwed up by installing rubbish or installation corruption.

The “not being able to screw it up by installing rubbish” to be one of the big advantages.
As a young teen finding her way on the interweb I’m always worried about her killing her machine by mistake!

Won’t slow down either and she then won’t “need a new one cos this one’s got slow”.

as an owner of 3x Chromebooks and a Chromebox, it’s interesting how, unlike Android, the ChromeOs products are far more resilient to updates and dont suffer from hardware obsolescence.

I have had 2x Nexus 4 and 2x Nexus 7 all slowly die and keep over after years of Android updates and moving from KitKat to Lollipop. Whereas my original Samsung Series 3 chromebook is still running a charm (and arguably better than a later HP). My colleague has just given his Series 5 to his 80yr old dad to keep in contact. And He will go and get an Acer or Asus to replace it.

Stoner, are you using a Nexus phone still? I’m thinking of a 5 or 6 to replace my ageing iphone

Does Netflix run on Chromebook?

no, I’ve gone for a Chinese OEM phone called a Jiayu S3 advanced. There’s been a few threads in here, and some other people have done the same.

Its a great phone, my only problem was I got it absolutley soaked through while walking in France a few weeks ago. I revived it, but it wont charge when ON, only when OFF. That’s not as bad as it sounds, as I use the Auto OFF/ON scheduler to power it down at midnight when it charges, and wakes automatically in the morning. I also have spare batteries and a dock charger for them as well.

I think Allthepies, djglover and bob-summers got one, and at least one other forumite.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-was-that-chinese-mobile-with-the-great-spec

tiggs, yeah, I’ve netflixs and spotify on mine, although you’ll have less luck with Eurosport unfortunately, as their player needs installing (and you can’t do that on a chromebook)

I ditched Eurosport for being such a bunch of luddites they still use Silverlight – a platform not even it’s developers support anymore!

I found that ITV player worked fine in France to catch le tour this year anyway.

Cheers nickc – might give one a go.

Netflix works as does Amazon Instant Video.

Got an ASUS chromebox, lovely bit of kit – fit and forget mainly – only gripe is printing, google cloud print by no means reliable, been through 3 different printers, they’ve all had problems connecting (also need a windows/mac/linux machine to set it all up in the first place IME).

I collected ours yesterday and set it up for Jnr last night.
I’m really impressed, to steal the phrase from another tech company…It just works!

I need to dig around it a little more to find out how to see the file explorer equivalent works and how to save things locally and to the cloud, but first impressions count for a lot and I like! (perhaps of equal importance, so does our new teenager!)

Thanks for all the pointers

I’ve got an acer 720. Fantastic, and couldn’t recommend it more. 120 quid and no windows, bargain.

(also need a windows/mac/linux machine to set it all up in the first place IME).

You really don’t. My canon Google cloud printer worked a charm out of the box.

cloud printing is proper black magic… 😯

anyone know if Kodi installs/runs on ChromeOS then? i’m close to pulling the trigger…

Can you do it on the desktop version of the Chrome browser? If so, yes, if not (without some hacking) probably not – general guidance for what you can and can’t do on a chromebook.

Only now moving over to an X200s…

Have one of those as my err.. security monitoring laptop. Lovely bit of kit, been very reliable and see no reason to upgrade. Except a Yoga 260 has just appeared that needs testing ….

Must get a Chromebook to play with. I ended up giving junior #1 a Win10 Samsung netbook the SSD was fast but 60Gb so bugger all use for work, figured he’d have to get used to Windows sooner or later.